Walmart’s eCommerce Journey
Walmart’s eCommerce journey has been a long and winding one. The retailer began dabbling in online sales back in 2000, but it wasn’t until 2015 that Walmart made a serious push into the e-commerce space. The problem? How to keep up with Amazon, the e-commerce juggernaut that has been eating up market share for years. The solution? A mix of aggressive acquisitions and investments, along with a lot of internal soul-searching.
Walmart’s $3 billion acquisition of Jet.com in 2016 was a major turning point in the company’s eCommerce strategy. The deal gave Walmart access to Jet’s advanced technology and allowed the retailer to quickly ramp up its online offerings. In the years since, Walmart has made a number of other strategic acquisitions, including ShoeBuy, Moosejaw, and Bonobos, Alert Innovation, Delivery Drivers, Delivery Drivers, MemoMi, Symbotic, Babytuto, Botmock, Zeekit, Joyrun, Thunder Industries, Polymorph, Aspectiva, Art.com, ELOQUII, Flipkart, FromParcel, Yihaodian and many more.
